


Ticking Heels

by goingbadly



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - Ian Fleming
Genre: F/M, Immortal!Bond, M/M, Multi, Supernatural Beings, The Fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingbadly/pseuds/goingbadly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond has been around a long time. A LONG time. But you can blame that on the woman with a thousand faces - they all have one theme, she says. </p><p>"Beautiful, beloved. And dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ticking Heels

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Last of His Knights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/980703) by [marlowe_tops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlowe_tops/pseuds/marlowe_tops). 



> Also inspired by Seal the Deal by Sashaya http://archiveofourown.org/works/1052685 . Hopefully I'm not stepping on any toes with this - Mythology is Irish/Gaelic/not really anything -
> 
> Thanks to my betas Cia and Mie.
> 
> Comments and kudos make me keep writing!

“Bond. James Bond.”

_Odd how your name means a promise._

The summer of 1903, Prague, and James is leaning over a balcony at some god-awful party somewhere in the mountains – thin air and overpriced wine and he had to pay double for the privilege of a room that was merely boiling hot rather than completely unbearable. He’d finally stumbled outside as the sun was setting, intending to cool the sweat on his forehead in the delicate remnants of light. The Ériu, the ancient people of Ireland, call this the Purple Hour; they hold it sacred for magic, but it reminds James most of home. Of Glencoe, in Scotland. Of rolling green and mist and wild places where you might hear Gaelic spoken by the wind.

A trickle of condensation runs down the glass by his hand, past his fingers, pools on the warm stone. Behind him the party is in full-swing, ladies in fever-bright evening gowns twirling around their dull-suited companions like carousel horses.

 _Or it could mean a debt._ The woman leaning on the railing beside him is old enough to be his mother, her face care-lined. She looks like she’d made one hard decision too many, like a million frowns and grimaces have all inscribed themselves on her by force. James can only see her when he looks side-long; she slips in and out of his peripheral vision like a hallucination, disappearing when he tries for a direct glance. He’s drunk enough that he’s alright with that trick. Actually, he’d like to learn it someday.

She has a close-cropped helmet of white hair, and diamond earrings that shine like suns despite the dim light. She holds her chin just a little too high, jutting defiantly upwards, making her face unfriendly and harsh.

“What are you getting at?” he asks finally.

He thought he had the sideways trick of looking at her right, but maybe he hasn’t got it quite yet – for a moment, he thinks her eyes go very queer indeed. All black; no iris, no white, just two massive devouring pupils.

 _I’m going to offer you a deal,_ she tells him. _And you’re going to take it._

“And why would I do a thing like that?”

 _Because, Mr. Bond, that railing is about to break._ Under his glass where the water’s dripping there’s a _crack_ like the end of the world. Inside, the carousel girls spun round and round under the brave lights, pushing faster until their skirts blur into one molten colour. The Purple Hour twines molasses fingers around him so when he leaps for the safety of the doors it's at a quarter speed and the woman is already gone – except for her voice in his ear, _y_ _ou’ll be damned if you die like this._

The split in the stone slices from the balcony to building like a racehorse sighting the finish line.

_In fact I think you’ll be damned if you die at all._

\--------------

Christmas of 1913 he’s in Paris, because he’s only been young for a decade and that city hasn’t yet lost its charm.

1913 is a good year. It’s snowing lightly as he makes his way to his favorite café; dry flakes caught in his hair and on the dark fabric of his coat like temporal stars, so slight they disappear when they melt without leaving moisture behind. The city is bright under a sky blacker than oil-sand; lights shine out in every shop, and all the houses have their windows thrown open to vent the heat of parties so candlelight spills over into the streets. Bond knows almost every other person who passes him. He loses track of how many brightly wrapped parcels are shoved into his hands. They’re indiscriminately addressed, to him or someone else or no one at all – but all given with equal joy, all presented with a cold-nosed kiss and a shout of endearment.

He accepts the presents but waves off invitations to even the most likely revels; inside his chosen café there’s a round of poker being played and once he sits down there, in the candlelight, with the honey-coloured table and the cards as red as sin, he’s not moving for a _week._

Bond looks forward to Paris at Christmas.

Paris at Christmas; Greece in the summer; Moscow for fall… Ireland for one night on Beltane, in the old places, when they snuff the candles and tell stories of the _daoine sìth._ Stories that, when James listens to them side-long, cut dangerous close to truth.

_Best not to think of that._

James sits down at the table and shrugs out of his heavy woolen coat. He raises his finger to the bartender with a smile, trusting that nothing ever changes here and his order will always be remembered. It’s with a shiver of uncomfortable unfamiliarity that he sees the bartender bring him not a drink, but a note.

“This came for you – god, must have been almost a month ago. She said you’d be here. Knew the exact time, too. Odd _madame_ …” It’s sealed with smooth unmarked wax and smells like stone-dust and summer in Prague. Bond swallows and is forced to lick his lips despite that he knows it will make him look nervous.

“Thank you.” 

When he breaks the seal a single piece of paper falls out –  it says, _come outside, Shéamais,_ and nothing more. Bond stands.

“Alright, then?” the Bartender asks, as he pushes out the door. “Eh –  Monsieur – Monsieur Bond, your coat –“

It’s dark and getting colder outside. The snow is coming down more heavily; not the thin, dry flakes of a moment ago, but thick wet flurries that will pack tight and turn to sludge when they melt. She’s wearing a two-button wool coat with a wide collar and no adornments. She looks tired.

 _There’s about to be a war,_ she snaps, _you better bloody well be ready to sit it out._

Bond blinks at her. “Sorry?”

_I expect you not to get involved, Bond, do you understand me?_

“Me? Go to _war?_ ” Despite himself, he laughs. “Listen to a load of half-brained idiots with inherited titles, barking orders at me and getting the majority of their men killed because they’re too _inbred_ to know what needs doing? I think _not._ ”

For a moment, she just stares at him.

 _I forgot how bloody odd you are when you’re young,_ she says finally, and apparently, that’s that.

\--------------

1995.

“Your predecessor kept some cognac in the top draw –“

“I prefer burbon.”

She cuts him off brusquely and the voice is so familiar James blanks on what to say for the first time in almost a hundred years.

“Ice?”

“Yes,” he answers automatically, gathering his wits. _Twenty years too young, still,_ he thinks. _Bitch in a power-suit and she hasn’t made enough hard decisions yet to know the weight of them._ She tries to brief him but Bond cuts her off, dismissing her input out of hand. He’ll do whatever he thinks best and she can get _fucked_ if she gets in his way. After all, he has a job to do, and he’s damn good at it by now.

“You don’t like me, Bond,” she says abruptly, when he's done. He’s put off balance – _again_ \- not many people that can put James Bond off balance, and she manages twice in under a minute. _What an extraordinary woman._ ”You don’t like my methods. You think I’m an accountant. A bean-counter. More interested in my _numbers_ than your instincts.”

“The thought had occurred to me.”

“Good. Because I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War, who’s boyish charms – although wasted on me – obviously appeal to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you.” _She’s right about it all except the time period,_ he thinks, _Oh,_ _I **like** her. _ But she’s not done. “If you think for one moment I don’t have the balls to send a man out to die, your _instincts_ are dead wrong. I’ve no compunction about sending you to your death. But I won’t do it on a whim. Even with your cavalier attitude towards life.” She leans forward over the desk and restates his mission goals, like he hadn’t been listening the first time. There’s a sardonic lift to her eyebrows, and he wonders how long it will take this job to destroy her humour. He wonders what they told her about the dark things she'll face. About him. “Don’t make it personal,” is her final advice.

“Never.” It’s an excellent exit line and Bond almost takes it, draining his drink and setting it on the table before he goes. At the door, though, he hesitates – hand on the knob.

“Is there something _else,_ Bond?” she snaps. He turns back. To him her face is painfully young, although she must look older than he does. He wonders which of his actions will weigh most heavily on her; which will contribute to the care-worn woman she’ll become. He wonders, if she knew the face she’d wear in twenty years, if she’d still have taken the offer to be M.

“Actually,” he says, “I object to being called a relic of the Cold War. I feel _Great War_ might be more appropriate…”

\--------------

The next time they meet is 1917, Passchendaele. Bond’s lying in a trench, cut-off from all human contact but the incessant noise of the guns. He’s not injured – that’s impossible, at least physically – but he made the bad mistake of having a seat and shutting his eyes, and now inertia holds him so tight he thinks he may never get up.

_How in the hell did I get to this point? I’m a terrible shot and I can’t think of three times in my life I’ve ever done something that wasn’t to the point of my own pleasure. What in God’s bloody name was I thinking?_

_You saw the casualty lists,_ Bond hears, and he tries to open his eyes but he can’t. They’re glued shut, blood and filth and muck holding the lids together more than his strength to open them can surmount. _You saw the dead and realized your world was ending. And you had to do something. I assume you’re not intending to give up just yet…?_

“Of course not. Still keeping the British end up, mum.”

_Are you mocking your former morals, or changing them?_

“Absolutely I am _not_ changing. After the war I’ll be a perfect scoundrel again, and love every minute of it.”

Silence.

He can’t open his eyes to tell if she’s gone.

\--------------

1933 and the world is different but Bond is not.

He tells himself that, anyways, as he straightens his cuffs and plucks a bullet from the inside of his jacket with a fair amount of disgust. It’s been flattened by impact, shining dull silver and copper in the dusty light of a small Berlin flat. _Ruined another good suit,_ Bond thinks, and tosses the bullet to the side. He narrowly misses hitting one of the three men unconscious on the floor wearing the black-on-red arm-bands of the National Socialist Party.  When he heads for the door, James kicks the largest one hard in the ribs in passing – just because he can. _Bloody Nazis._

The heels of Bond’s shoes make neat clipping sounds on the wooden treads of the stairs. Old shoes, but good quality; by now Bond knows to buy a few hold-overs when they make things right. Things go out of fashion so fast, after all. People go bankrupt and then your favorite shoes are made in a factory with cheap rubber soles. Bond's cologne has stopped being made entirely, and he doesn't believe he'll ever get over that.

Best to buy things in bulk while they still exist.

Bond tucks the letter he’d been paid to intercept into his pocket. A faint circle of white paper shows through the dark grey wool over his heart, the bullet hole, but Bond is not about to sew his own clothes to fix that.

Maybe he can convince the maid at the consulate to do it for free, if he draws them a bath together first.

When he reaches the street a brunette with elegantly waved hair peels herself off the wall of the barber-shop opposite and steps into the crowd to meet him. She sways across the sidewalks on impossibly tall heels, ignoring traffic and pedestrians alike. No danger to her as a result; motorcars and people both swerve around her, clearing her a corridor like the Red Sea for Moses. No one otherwise acknowledges her presence; there’s not even cat-calls.

There should be. Bond considers it a _crime_ there are not cat-calls. Her dress is a second skin that ends at her knees with a thin rim of silk like a promise and the seams of her stockings make his mouth go dry.

Her eyes flash black just before she slides her arm in his and James gets the feeling she likes the way he gets stiff - not _afraid_ , he tells himself, just _cautious_. Bond ought to be used to danger by now.

He keeps his voice level as he says, “You’re looking good.”

 _Flattery will get you nowhere. But don’t stop trying._ They walk arm and arm down the street as if enjoying the window displays. Ignoring the cry that rises behind them as James’s work is discovered, she smiles dreamily up at him. Her ruby lips curve around far too many teeth.

“I remember you being bit more… mature,” he says tactfully, sliding an arm around her waist; no better cover for a man than a beautiful woman, no better excuse to be out of the embassy wandering around Berlin. She arches her spine like a cat under his touch and fire surges through his veins to his stomach.

_I’m wearing faces from your future, 007. One day you’ll look back and hate me for this._

“I hate you already, if only for the dress.”

She smiles. _In thirty years everyone will have them, and you’ll be driven wild by any old girl walking by._

“Never,” he promises gallantly. “Only you, darling. What’s a double-oh-seven?”

 _You’ll find out altogether too soon_ _._ The German police behind them point and shout and chase by, paying no mind to the two young lovers arm and arm. She touches his chest as they pass a display of flowers, just a slight brush of fingers like a lightning bolt. _And you’ve been shot again! Naughty boy. Wasn’t the war enough for you?_

“I do enjoy the slight benefit of immortality,” he quips smoothly, trying to ignore how her hip bumps against his with each unsteady step of her stiletto heels.

 _Well, yes,_ she agrees. _For now. Another fifteen years past, James. How are you enjoying it?_ Her fingers trace small circles on his chest. The alarms rising behind them seem to keep time; every time her finger-tips complete a circuit, the bells ring and his heart-rate jumps. _Playing the thief and the rogue all over Europe, not a care in the world._

“It’ll never get old,” he says bravely, as a pot-hole necessitates her stepping away from him. He guides her around it, and her heels click as she steps neatly back into his side.

 _When it **does** ,_ she smiles, mocking or pitying, _Perhaps you should go home. While there’s still a Britain to go home to._

“What do you mean?” his grip tightens involuntarily on her waist. It's intended as a threat, but she just wriggles and gasps in a way that makes his spine feel tight.

_Haven’t you heard? There’s about to be a war. You’re to go, again, and come back a hero. For me. Or you could always give up…_

Bond stops breathing for a moment. _Another war?_ She waits for him to say something, but when he doesn’t she huffs and presses her lips to his cheek in a cold goodbye. Her heels are so tall she doesn’t have to rise to her tip-toes. James is finding he _can’t_ speak, even though he wants to. As he watches those ridiculous shoes click her away he hopes for once that she’s wrong and there will never be another war like the last.

 _God save us all,_ he thinks. There's a weight in his pocket.

She’s left him a bottle of cologne, the kind that they don’t make anymore.

\----------------

She’s right. Later, he hates her for the faces she wears.

The first Moneypenny never knows what he is, and James likes it better that way. He toys with her heart with absolute sincerity, knowing better than to make a promise that her mortality will force him to break.

She asks him one night how he’s managed to age so well, scowling at her own wrinkles. Her body betrays her slowly, while his remains as it always has been, and he knows the fear of death is pounding in her failing heart.

He takes both her hands. They tremble against his.

“Darling,” he tells her, “You’re as beautiful as the first time I saw you.”

He means it.

\----------------

May 8th, 1945. Bond is in Belgium, in the midst of celebrating Victory again (or still, it’s been that sort of night) and she is a chord in a minor key striking right through the raucous party.

James is wearing a naval officer’s uniform, complete with shiny gold buttons, which had been crisply pressed when he started out four hours ago and is now only slightly dishevelled. He’s not entirely drunk, unlike the rest of the soldiers; Bond’s learned a measure of restraint, much to his disgust. He turns to pour the fresh drink his men have shoved into his hands on an unfortunate potted plant and she is there, black-within-black eyes large and utterly inhuman.

James spills his drink in surprise and the beer is cool on his fingers. Her hand closes around his wrist, so tight he thinks the bone will bruise. His cup falls to the ground, shattering outwards at their feet into a dozen irretrievable pieces.

 _You need to see this_.

The world flashes black like a blink of the universe.

Then, a rush of white.

So bright Bond’s eyelids burn off, and regrow, over and over in seconds – scorched away faster than his body can protect them. Exposed skin peels down to bone, builds itself up, is peeled down again. Heat and light and noise surround him, scour him, rip him in every direction like he is standing in the heart of a sun being born.

Bond feels his bones warp and twist, knows himself to be screaming – when he falls to his knees the caps of them crack and shatter outwards, like the glass at their feet in Belgium. Under her grip on his wrist, his skin sloughs off – unconnected to the muscle, unconnected to the bone, coming off in one piece like a glove.

The initial blast fades. The pain does not. There’s an _unclean_ feeling in James’ bones, and he curls up fetal on the ground as layers and layers of sickened marrow force their way out through his skin as thick, fatty sweat.

By the end of it he’s crying, and shaking, snot and bile choking his breath. She has to haul him to his feet to make him stand, and she does without mercy.

 _See this,_ she repeats, _bear witness. The Americans have detonated a nuclear bomb._

For a third of a mile around them there is nothing. No buildings. No people. It is a level plain of dirt, featureless and uninterrupted for three quarters of a mile – there, out of the dirt, base husks of buildings remain. Skeletal forms, reaching to the sky as if demanding to know what had been done to them.

Past that, there is fire and ruin. Someone is screaming, high and never-ending.

_This is unchecked human power. This is the human race at open war._

_Are you sure you don’t want to give in?_

He shakes his head mutely. And, being British to the core despite himself, adds to himself, **_American_** _power._

She’s wearing a new face – a brunette, slender and pale, with cold eyes and a thin slash of lips painted deep red. It’s not a kind face, and she’s not smiling. Her ball gown, cut daringly low, sweeps around her feet over the rubble without picking up dirt.

The screaming is getting louder. People are coming towards them now, searching desperately through the ruin for anything that might survive. They cry out for loved ones, unfamiliar language needing no translation but the universality of despair.  James knows they won’t find anything. The old world is ash, now, and James is the only one left who can remember how it was: sweet summers in Prague and Paris in its innocence where everyone might know your name – London, before the blitz – Istanbul, Berlin, Moscow –

This city, whatever its name.

 _Give in,_ she says kindly. _It’s all over as soon as you say, Shéamais, tell me you’re ready to settle the debt and I’ll end it all here._

“We’re going back to London,” he snaps instead. She’s not scared by his brusque tone, and when she reaches up and cups his face her black eyes are very sad indeed. He realizes for the first time that her make-up is smudged. “You’ve been crying?”

Her expression changes – softer, alien to the black-eyed bitch he knows. There’s something there like sympathy, or regret in her face. _I’m so sorry, my love._

She leans up to kiss him.

\----------------

After Vesper dies, Bond tries to pretend that the black-eyed woman let her come back in time for one last goodbye, but even he can’t drink enough to believe that.

\----------------

In 1956 the Director of MI6 resigns in disgrace and Bond is sitting in the head office when his successor comes in. On the desk, to be exact, with a WWI service rife over his knees.

“Who the bloody _hell_ – “ the man starts.

“Bond. James Bond.” Bond unfolds from the table. He doesn’t mean to be threatening, but he’s been a killer for forty years now and that changes a man. His old rifle is far too comfortable in his grip. “And I think you’re about to find MI6 is going to be a hell of a lot more efficient from here on in.”

“Alright, you joker. Get out. This is a private office –“

“Of the head of a secret organization, protected by the might of the British Government. Shame I can just walk in like this. Cognac?”

Bond sets his gun on the desk unsecured and goes to the sideboard. He’s been in the office long enough to have snooped about for booze, and the cognac he pours in two glasses is the best MI6 has to offer. He makes the Director’s a double.

Poor chap’s going to need it.

_I saw what happened when military men were given the chance to control the world. What comes of armies and battles._

_Better to direct from the shadows…_

\----------------

_You’ve come a long way._

She – or maybe _she_ isn’t the best word – is a man, this time. Handsome, square-jawed, with slicked-back hair that falls rakishly out of place over his brow. He – she? – looks confident and friendly despite the gun harnessed to his – her – chest. She falls in step with him outside the Director’s office, thumbs hooked into her belt-loops.

“There’s something different about you as well,” Bond smirks, slinging the rifle over his shoulder. His shoes clip neatly down the marble stairs of the MI6 building. Beside him, she is silent for a long moment before she speaks.

 _There’s a theme._ _And I ran out of women._

“Oh?”

_Beautiful, beloved. And dead._

“Humans do generally end up that way.”

He’s gotten used to the way no one looks twice at her. He hails a cab and she slides in beside him, flitting impossibly through the tiny gap between when he opens the door and sits down.

 _And what an odd species you are._ She taps her fingers on the window as they drive, like a jailbird, staring longingly at the outside world. The man she’s imitating has a strong profile, and his lips curve invitingly up at the corners. Bond wonders what she meant by ‘beloved.’ _Take cars, for example. Explosions in steel. What a horrifying thing to ride around in._

“Birds of a feather…”

The cabbie gives James an weird look in the mirror for talking to himself. _Are you implying that I’m an odd species?_ She laughs, delighted, her borrowed voice booming and infectious. Her smile, in contrast, is bitter. _Maybe I am. Look what I’ve given the humans: James Bond, for MI6. Protector of the whole world._

_I wonder what will become of us all._

\----------------

When Alec Trevelyan dies – 006, brother, lover, friend – she appears again. Offering him one last chance ( _All you have to do is opt out. Die, finally, and even if you’ve lost at least you don’t have to go on)_ that of course he doesn’t take. _Can’t_ take. MI6 relies on him, now. Britain relies on him. It’s been a hundred years and he’s damn fond of the place.

She’s a floppy-haired boy in an awful jacket and a too-expensive tie. Bond has lived long enough to have superb taste in clothes, and is almost actively _nauseous._ He’s started to study her faces more carefully, after Moneypenny - and now Alec. He knows it won’t be long until M is dead.

And the atomic-bomb brunette.

And this boy –

Who will be _beloved,_ maybe, but certainly never _beautiful._ His glasses reduce his face, make him look smaller. Shy. Underneath the sculpted fall of his curls, even with her black-within-black eyes animating him, James can tell the boy will be dull and unsure.

“Love who you’re wearing,” James jibes, because if you can’t have a sense of humour about knowing in advance that you’ll love someone and they’ll die, what _can_ you have a sense of humour about?

 _Not yet,_ she smiles at him. _And not as bad as the bomb, but oh Shéamais, you will._

\----------------

James is waiting for his new Quartermaster when he sees her last face make its way through the crowd towards him. He recognizes the boy without effort, and recognition triggers a hot wave of disgust in his stomach.

_I’m to blow off my new Quartermaster to run after this doomed child in an tasteless tie? I think not._

“Excuse me,” Bond says, meaning to walk away, and what he means is, _fuck destiny, just this once._

“007. I’m your new Quartermaster.”

Bond sinks back into his chair regretfully. Of course it isn’t that easy. _She_ would never let it be. “You must be joking.”

“Why, because I’m not wearing a lab-coat?”

Against his will, Bond is amused. He doesn’t want to be – how could he enjoy this? Q is dead already, as Bond measures time. “Because you’ve still got spots.”

“My complexion is hardly relevant.”

“Your competency is.”

“Age is no guaranteer of efficiency,” the boy shoots back without hesitation.

Bond thinks of Vesper like a knife in his spine and it makes him snap, “And youth is no guaranteer of innovation.” But it’s no use fighting _liking_ Q. It was always going to happen this way – he was always going to look at those flawlessly messy curls with a mix of exasperation and affection, he was always going to want to hurl the boy under a bus and protect him from the world in equal measures.

“Q,” he finishes the conversation, putting a name to the child marked _beloved_ and _dead._

“007.”

\----------------

The morning light turns Q’s skin to ivory. There’s a bottle of cologne on the bedside table, an impossible bottle that wasn’t there when Bond went to sleep.

_Say “yes” now and I’ll grant him a full life._

“How young does he die?”

She’s half-hidden in the shadow of the curtains, wearing Q’s face – Q’s face as it is now, maybe a year or two older. Certainly no more than that.

But then, she’d been young as Moneypenny, and Moneypenny had died an old woman.

 _That’s not given to you to know,_ she tells Bond. There’s something soft in her voice. It could have been kindness, if it was someone else.  Bond knows it’s cruelty. _I didn’t offer for Vesper, but you wouldn’t have taken it then. Will you now?_

Q’s hair is improbably soft at Bond’s fingertips. The boy shifts in his sleep, curling tighter to James’s side. He looks peaceful, immortal in his youth, though Bond knows what a lie that is.

Still.

The bomb. Hiroshima.

The long war in the shadows, that will go on long past Q’s death no matter if Q dies as a boy or an old man in a hospital bed.

The old bull-dog on M’s desk.

_Will you save him?_

“No,” Bond says. “I can’t.”


End file.
